After the Ball
by SadArticle
Summary: Smutty fluff, be warned! Percy and Marguerite enjoy the calm, the silence, and each other. Set after The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel


After the Ball

_After the ball is over_

_After the break of morn_

_After the dancers' leaving_

_After the stars are gone_

Marguerite sank back into the pillows and bolsters against the bedhead, feeling every muscle relax as she reclined. The nerves and excitement of getting ready to greet her guests now seemed like a distant memory; hours on her feet, of dancing and circulating amongst her guests, of smiling and laughing and making clever conversation, had soon stretched the evening into early morning. She sighed, raising her arms and absently crossing them behind her head as she waited for Lucie, her lady's maid, to come and help her out of her robe.

"You look as though you've just been cut down from the gallows, m'dear."

Marguerite opened her eyes. Her husband was leaning against the foot post of the bed, his arms folded and one ankle crossed over the other, casually regarding her. The expert cut of coat and breeches had saved his grey silk suit from wilting, but his features betrayed to the familiar gaze of his wife that he was as fatigued as she. A certain flash in his eternally somnolent grey eyes, however, lead Marguerite to suppose that the night was far from over.

"What a charming and romantic compliment," she responded dryly, closing her eyes once more. "I thank you, sir."

"But a more lovely blackguard I'm sure I cannot imagine," he added quickly. "Let me see: a murderess, I think. Jilted by your aristocratic lover, you –"

"Jilted, sir?" Marguerite scoffed. "I think not."

She felt fingers stir the hem of her gown and lift one ankle, but she did not open her tired blue eyes.

"Ah, yes, therein lies the tragedy," Percy sighed, slipping a heeled shoe from his wife's foot. "Believing yourself immune to the fate of most mistresses, I imagine his rejection came as a complete shock to my lady."

"No man would ever dare spurn me," Marguerite returned archly, stirring slightly as he began to massage her aching toes, "as I hope you know." She squinted at him from beneath her lashes.

"Oh, all of Vauxhall knows _that_, m'dear!" He laughed, removing the other shoe and dropping it to the rug beside the bed.

"Vauxhall?"

"Was it not at the gardens where you finally caught up with your complacent lover, and declared those exact words in front of the whole company?"

Marguerite giggled as he kissed the arch of her foot, then resumed her nonchalant air. "My good sir, you should not listen to gossip." She paused: "I favour Ranelagh to Vauxhall."

The progress of her husband's slender fingers made her lose the thread of her fanciful tale; Percy had followed the contours of her leg from the foot he had been gently caressing to just above her knee. She could feel the rich taffeta skirt of her gown rising up as his hands traced forwards.

"Percy …!" She gasped.

And then the tips of his fingers blindly found her garter and released her stocking. He retreated, lightly rolling the silk back down her leg.

"Yes, m'dear?" He answered innocently. "I'm sorry, you were saying?"

Marguerite, now slightly breathless, flopped back against the cushions. She remained silent as she felt him removing the other stocking. His fingers brushed against her thighs, but only to unfasten the band tied there. The downy hairs on her legs tickled her as they were stirred by the cool night air.

"Better?" He asked, one hand remaining cupped below her knee.

Marguerite sighed, nodding lazily in response. The mattress shifted slightly as he leaned forward. When she fluttered her eyes open again, his face was close above hers. "How lovely you are," he told her, in that awestruck, almost dazed, tone of voice that he sometimes lapsed into when he was alone with her.

"Even after the gallows?" she smiled.

He took advantage of the words upon her lips to kiss her open mouth, seeking a response with the pressure of his touch and the stirring of his tongue against hers. Marguerite raised herself up to him, pressing her hands to his face and then grasping his hair between her fingers, pulling him closer just as he was pushing against her.

A sudden draught caused the candles in the room to gutter, and Marguerite looked up in time to witness the door being pulled closed from the other side. Percy, leaning awkwardly forward on one knee, followed the direction of her alarmed gaze. "What? It was only a breeze."

"It was Lucie, come to help me undress," she groaned in humiliation.

Percy smiled at the furious blush that was rising to colour her cheeks. "It could be worse, my love – she could have caught you with your lover," he whispered.

Marguerite turned her attention back to her husband. "Oh no, it could not be! I had to send him away – when you finally came home to me, for good."

"Too confusing?" He breathed against her lips.

"He was only a temporary measure," she replied, softly kissing the corners of his mouth.

"And how _did_ he measure?"

She giggled breathlessly. "A lady never tells."

Percy gently brushed the golden curls from her forehead, and touched his fingers to her cheek. He smiled as Marguerite leaned into his caress, closing her eyes.

The house was now as still and silent as a tomb, compared to but a few hours earlier when it seemed that all of London society had crossed the river to attend another of Lady Blakeney's famous soirees.

"As it is my fault that your lady's maid has abandoned you," Percy announced, gently cupping Marguerite's face in his hands and gazing steadily into her eyes, "should I help you with your robe?"

"The lady accepts."

Percy sat back on one leg folded beneath him, and regarded the intricacies of her gown. Marguerite laughed as his concentrated expression deepened into a frown.

"Here," she said, unfastening the bows on two ribbons tied below her breasts. The ribbons were drawstrings holding up a panel of ruched taffeta, which revealed a cross-over fastening as the rich material slipped down over a tasselled belt.

"Aha!" Percy exclaimed. "How involved women's fashions are!"

"Is it not worth the effort?"

"I certainly hope so," he leered, twitching his eyebrows.

Marguerite playfully shoved at his shoulders, but he fought against her feigned resistance and swept her onto her back. Still looking into the shifting blue of his wife's eyes, Percy attempted to blindly unfasten the bodice of her gown. His fingers danced over the fold of pin-tucked, fringed silk, but he could not figure out how it was secured without looking. Marguerite snorted with laughter as he rolled his eyes and propped himself up to investigate. He finally released the tab, only to meet with the further obstacle of the tasselled rope belt. Unpicking the loose knot, he pulled on the length of belt as if he was taking up the slack on his yacht. Marguerite arched her back away from the bed as the tassel passed beneath her.

"Now," he sighed, lifting one side of the bodice and peering inside her robe, "how many more locks and bolts do you have in there?"

Percy sank down again to kiss Marguerite, who was trembling with silent laughter. He eased the bodice away from her shoulder and the swell of her breasts, pressing his lips to the wonderfully soft, and now blushing, skin there.

"Wait, wait," Marguerite giggled, rolling away from him. She struggled upright, facing slightly away from Percy, and then raised her hands to the short capped sleeves at her shoulders.

Moving to kneel behind her, Percy caught her hands in his. He touched his lips from the line of her jaw to the straps of her stays, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine. Marguerite freed her arms from the tight material of the bodice, letting it drape just below her bust as she loosened another drawstring which gathered in the skirts. Rising to her knees, she peeled the embroidered taffeta robe down over her hips, leaving just her petticoats beneath the fringes of her stays and a cloud of expensive material around her legs. She sank down sideways to free herself from the tangle of skirts, and Percy helped to scoop up the robe before pushing it unceremoniously off the bed.

"Nearly there," she whispered, as Percy pressed his lips against her shoulder.

It was liberating, in every sense of the word, to be released from the constraints of a pair of stays. Not that the device was especially tight or uncomfortable, only that Marguerite enjoyed the tingling sensation of reawakened nerves and the cool kiss of night air upon her sensitive skin. Yet tonight the sensation of the stays against her suddenly sensitive breasts, Percy's warmth behind her with his light touch upon her skin, were turning the ordinarily relaxing stages of preparing for bed into a heady experience.

She could feel her husband's fingers dancing against the nape of her neck as he sought the laces which bound her within; a series of quick, sharp tugs, followed by a snap as the end of the lace pulled out of each eyelet, told her that Percy was working the ribbon completely free, whereas Lucie would normally only slacken it for her and lazily slip the stays over her head. Marguerite didn't care: she would have liked him to just cut the lacing, so keen was she to be released; to feel her breasts touch against the linen of her chemise, and then against him.

Feeling curiously languorous and giddy at the same time, Marguerite wondered how it would be tonight; she knew that Percy could take her slowly and sensuously, or surprise her with a level of mastery and energy that popular opinion would not have thought him capable of. She had grown to thrive on their impulsive and erratic reunions, which had punctuated his dangerous career in France; those days and nights spent with just the two of them secluded in some coastal love nest, or shut away in their apartments at home. Sometimes he would send word when to expect him, giving her time to prepare for his return, but she had secretly preferred it when he would just appear and need her right there and then; times when she would hear a carriage on the driveway, and rush down the stairs to find him stood in the hall, hungry for her. She was always just as hungry for him. That was how she had survived their unconventional, long-distance love affair: on memories of what they had shared, and dreams of how it would be again.

"What are you thinking of?" he asked, slipping his hands beneath the open stays.

"My lover," she sighed, contented.

"How deflating for a fellow," Percy replied dryly.

"You mentioned him first," she teased.

His hands were supporting her breasts, moulding her flesh as the rigid panels of the stays had done, only she found his touch warm and stimulating. Pressing closer, he drew her up onto his sloping thighs as he kissed her hair, her ear, the hollow of her collarbone, seeking contact with every part of her. She reached back to draw his face to hers, and as their lips met in a deep kiss, he pulled her round into his arms.

"I didn't know if it would make it better or worse," Marguerite said softly, as he lowered her down onto the bed, "to have you to myself, to be with you when ever I wanted."

Percy tilted his head, frowning slightly. "I don't understand."

She raised herself up onto her elbows, reaching for his hand with her fingers.

"That was what I feared, when we returned from Paris that last time. I knew that it would all be so different, and though I welcomed the constancy, the security – the happiness – I worried, too, that you would not be content."

"Content with what?"

"With only this."

He gave a small, incredulous laugh as he stared at her, drinking in her beauty: the spectrum of blue within her wide, laughing eyes; the way the dancing flames of the candles picked out the golden highlights in her curls; at the warm glow of her smooth skin.

"You are all I have, my love, and all I could ever need or want."

"And the Pimpernel?"

"Your lover?"

She smiled. "Not now."

"I am inestimably glad, my sweet, as I could never compare with such a figure," he told her, pressing his lips to hers.

Without breaking their kiss, Marguerite began working at the knot of his cravat, pulling it loose before lightly moving onto the buttons of his waistcoat. When she raised her hands to his face again, he was undone to the fastenings of his breeches.

Glancing down between them, Percy mumbled, "I don't know whether I should applaud or panic."

"Panic?" She repeated, a playful smile on her lips.

"Aye," he said, pretending to frown, "what has this Pimpernel chap been teaching you?"

"I fear my lord's dexterity has been impaired by his own copious generosity and good taste in wine, that is all," Marguerite teased, "or I am sure he would have been more than a match for a simple robe."

"Are we in competition?"

Even as he spoke, he could feel her plucking the tails of his shirt from his breeches, having already nimbly conquered the two hidden buttons which held up the small fall of his fly. "Not now," she repeated.

"Because I'm still fully clothed, if a little ventilated," he offered in light-hearted protest; "I even have my shoes on." Two dull thumps punctuated his words as he dropped his buckled satin pumps to the floor amidst her discarded gown.

Marguerite shifted from beneath him and sat up, letting the loose chemise fall from her shoulders. He studied her naked form, silhouetted against the candlelight, and noted how the rise and fall of her breasts was growing faster and shallower with her breathing. When he reached out a hand, however, she pulled away from his touch.

"Ah!" She clucked, freeing her hands from the sleeves of the chemise and undoing the ties on her petticoats, before slipping backwards until she was completely liberated of both.

Holding her burning gaze with his own darkly passionate intensity, Percy shrugged roughly out of jacket and open waistcoat, advancing on his knees towards her even as he dragged his shirt over his head. When he met her gracefully folded legs, she moved back until she was pressed against the cushions at the headboard. Slipping her knees around his thighs, she used her slender legs to finish what she had already started by undoing the fastenings of his breeches. Percy ran his hands up the soft skin of her legs and, cupping her buttocks, raised her to him. They knelt on the bed, the curves and hollows of their bodies moulded perfectly against each other, fusing together as their lips met in one long, slow kiss. He lightly stroked the tips of his fingers along her back and bottom: tracing stray curls of her ardent hair, smoothing along patterns made by the imprint of her stays, and cupping her soft flesh in his palms.

"My Margot," he breathed into her mouth, pressing her even closer against his body, both of them flushed and damp with sweat.

"Yes, yours," she replied absently, arching her back as he dipped his head lower and lower, kissing her neck, her shoulder, her breasts. She pushed him away from her to seek his mouth again, feeling the strength of him against her stomach.

Folding back onto her legs and sinking sideways, Marguerite beckoned him to come to her. Realising that he was still bound by the breeches gathered about his knees, Percy quickly and awkwardly moved to free himself from his remaining clothing. "I still win," she teased, lying back against the mattress.

"Somehow, I don't mind losing," he quipped, lowering himself between her legs. As he stirred against her, Marguerite trembled and twined herself about him. She could feel him there, the heat of his body adding to her own fire, but he was holding back from entering her completely. Bucking slightly, she sought union with him, as the blood pulsing though her body was making it almost agony to be denied.

Instead of melting into her, she felt him pulling back, and then his mouth was seeking her tender nipples. The void was becoming too much, and her whole slender frame shuddered against the bed as she parted her legs still wider.

"Please …" she began, and he lowered himself back onto her sensitive body, moving against her heat. Marguerite slipped down on the bedcover, and guided him with a trembling hand. His first thrust was a reprieve from the aching, and the next a whole delicious ecstasy of its own.

Lost to her surroundings, she clung to the edge of consciousness as her heartbeat pounded in her ears, and every nerve ending was flooded with a burst of energy. Her skin was now suffused with a deep blush, and beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead and chest. Above her and inside her, her husband was lost to the same instincts, and she met the force of his body with a natural rhythm.

Feeling his muscles suddenly tense against her, Marguerite rocked her pelvis higher and harder, until his climax overtook them both. She heard him groan, suppressing perhaps a louder cry as he desperately tried to maintain control, even as his body shook with passion.

"Oh, my love," Marguerite breathed, cradling him to her as she held him within, "my love."

He was still for a moment, his face buried in the perfume of her hair, his chest heaving against hers, and then he raised his head to look at her. His face was flushed, and his fair hair damp about his temples.

"I don't think I could ever lose again," he spoke softly, meditatively; "I have been graced with good fortune since the day you agreed to be my wife."

Marguerite busied herself with tidying his hair. Tucking a stray strand behind his ear, she asked nonchalantly: "And what of the other woman in your life, now that you are home with me?"

"Another woman?" Percy laughed. "Zounds! One is trial enough!"

"A lady, I believe, although I hear she is much in demand," Marguerite continued, not meeting his eyes; "men are forever seeking her charm, her guiding hand, her blessing. It can't have been easy to keep her to yourself for so long."

"Aha," he laughed, kissing the smile that was playing about her mouth,

"you must mean Lady Luck?"

"Herself."

"You are mistaken, my beautiful love, for she favoured another."

"And was it a happy union?"

"Successful," he replied thoughtfully, as he raised his body from hers to recline by her side. "And when the time came, they parted cordially."

Percy held his wife against him, folding his arms around her graceful frame as she nuzzled against his chest. Both of them lay serenely unaware of their physical state as they revelled in unchallenged bliss; Marguerite in allowing herself to savour victory over fickle mistresses and the call of a country in need of a hero, and her husband in finally surrendering to the lover and banishing the adventurer in his spirit.


End file.
